Starvation (crime)

Starving woman during the blockade of Biafra, an event that contributed significantly to the criminalization of starvation

Starvation of a civilian population is a war crime, a crime against humanity, or an act of genocide according to modern international criminal law.[1][2][3] Starvation has not always been illegal according to international law; the starvation of civilians during the siege of Leningrad was ruled to be not criminal by a United States military court, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, though imposing limits, "accepted the legality of starvation as a weapon of war in principle".[4] Historically, the development of laws against starvation has been hampered by the Western powers who wish to use blockades against their enemies; however, it was banned in the 1977 by Protocol I and Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions and criminalized by the Rome Statute. Prosecutions for starvation have been rare.

  1. ^ Ventura, Manuel JB (2019). "Prosecuting Starvation under International Criminal Law". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 17 (4): 781–814. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqz043.
  2. ^ Luciano, Simone Antonio (2023). "Starvation at the International Criminal Court: Reflections on the Available Options for the Prosecution of the Crime of Starvation". International Criminal Law Review. 23 (2): 284–320. doi:10.1163/15718123-bja10149. ISSN 1571-8123.
  3. ^ Conley, Bridget; de Waal, Alex (2019). "The Purposes of Starvation". Journal of International Criminal Justice. 17 (4): 699–722. doi:10.1093/jicj/mqz054.
  4. ^ Mulder & van Dijk 2021, pp. 383–384.